Deep Roots: Animal Rights Blog

I just learned today that Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary co-founder Chris Alley-Grubb survived a heart attack last month. Although they don’t know it, Peaceful Prairie has served as a model for us as we’ve been getting started. Their work is inspirational and a true voice for animals everywhere. So we hope that Chris will have a full and swift recovery. Be sure to head on over to their site to see how you can help while Chris takes a much deserved (and doctor-ordered) rest.

via Animal Person:

Chris has been Vegan for 18 years, and doesn’t fit any of the usual heart attack profiles or risk factors, other than hereditary heart problems and having to deal with extraordinary levels of stress.

Running a sanctuary dedicated to the lifelong care, protection, and advocacy of the most exploited and mass murdered animals on the planet – Farmed Animals – is extremely taxing on those of us who witness the horrors endured by the innocent victims of of egg, dairy and meat production . Our emotional, physical, and mental fortitude is tested everyday in ways that are impossible to describe.

Chris has put everything he has into building PPS. Thanks to his complete devotion to our mission, Peaceful Prairie is bigger, better, and more productive for billions of animals worldwide, than ever. We will continue to thrive with your support. The much needed break Chris is being forced to take, will cut into PPS’ resources now that Chris will not be able to keep giving so much of himself.

For Chris, and for the animals to whom he has devoted his Life, Please Go Vegan – and continue your support of Peaceful Prairie!

Thank You!

from HSUS:

Measures to protect pets from being sold for experimentation, and also from the horrors of dogfighting, are being considered right now for inclusion in the final Farm Bill. A small committee will decide the fate of these provisions, and you live in a district that has more influence than others in the country. Please take action right away to protect pets.

Both the House and Senate Farm Bills include provisions to stop the abuses of Class B Dealers, who acquire dogs and cats through methods such as pet theft and fraudulent response to “free to good home” ads. The Senate Bill also includes a provision to strengthen the federal law to combat the barbaric activity of dogfighting. These provisions are in jeopardy and we need your help right away to ensure that they are retained in the final Farm Bill.

You should call your senators and representatives (calls have a greater impact). You can reach your elected officials by calling the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or click here to look up your legislators and office phone numbers.

Those of us in Indiana have even more of an impact because Senator Lugar is the chair of the agriculture committee, the committee that determines the fate of the companion animal language in the bill. Calls are quick and can have a big effect on protecting animals. Here is a sample call from HSUS:

“Hello, my name is [your name] and I am a constituent from [your town]. I want to urge [legislator's name] to make sure that the final Farm Bill includes the Senate-and House-approved language that will put an end to the sale of random source dogs and cats by Class B Dealers for experimentation, and the Senate-passed language to crack down on dogfighting. These issues are very important to me. Thank you.”

For years, animal rights activists have argued that testing on animals provides skewed data at the cost of millions of lives. Well it seems that the National Institute of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency have finally came to the same conclusion.

“There are differences between species. We are not rats and we are not even other primates, and so that [the] desire here is to see if we could do better,” said Francis Collins, director of the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute. “Ultimately what you are looking for is [whether] this compound does damage to cells.”

Federal scientists have decided to collaborate on a new toxicology testing program that uses stem cell research and computer modeling rather than animal testing. The collaboration is the result of an agreement among the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Chemical Genomics Center under the National Human Genome Research Institute, and EPA National Center for Computational Toxicology.

The agencies teamed up in a five-year agreement to implement the recommendations of the 2007 report from the National Research Council, “Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy.” The agencies are confident that the new testing methods will provide more accurate results at a greater speed and with lower costs.

“What is being proposed here is to move the 20th century paradigm of testing of one compound at a time in many animals to going to the 21st Century paradigm [that] tests 5,000 to 10,000 compounds against 20,000 conditions in cells that are very specific to human toxicology,” said NIH Director Elias Zerhouni.

In 30 years of animal testing, NIH has tested 2,500 chemicals. With the use of the new technology, it is estimated that same amount could be done in a single afternoon.

While the shift away from animal testing could take several years, say NIH officials, it is a huge victory for animal rights and public health activists.

From KOMO TV:

Researchers implant coils on the monkeys’ eyeballs, thread wires up the skull and put a metal cylinder – sometimes two – into holes drilled in the monkey’s skull.

Through public disclosure requests we obtained thousands of pages of internal e-mails and reports from the UW and federal agencies. Some of the surgeries were approved, many more were not. We found evidence that some monkeys underwent a dozen or more surgeries, as the eye coils and head chambers were removed and replaced, again and again.

From StopAnimalTests.com:

Prompted by a complaint from PETA, federal investigators opened a formal inquiry at the University of Washington, Seattle (UW). New information from the ensuing investigations has confirmed widespread violations of animal protection regulations. The animal suffering involved in these cruel experiments is shocking. Experimenters cut off the tops of monkeys’ skulls, insert electrodes into their brains, and implant wire coils in their eyes. The monkeys are then restrained in experimentation chairs, with their heads bolted in place so that they can’t move while experimenters track their eye movements. They are kept hungry or thirsty much of the time so that they’ll comply during tests to get a sip of water or a bite of food.

Patrick was one of the monkeys used in these experiments at the UW. During his years of imprisonment at the university, Patrick battled illness and repeated infections caused by the implants. Because Patrick would not always perform during the experiments, his food was tightly restricted. There were times when he was so thin that his spine and his hips jutted out under his skin. Patrick also suffered from serious psychological conditions and even self-mutilated. Despite all of this, the operations and tests continued. Experimenters violated federal animal protection regulations by performing unauthorized surgeries on Patrick and other monkeys—cutting into the monkeys’ heads and eyes without approval from the university’s animal oversight committee.

You can send an email to the National Eye Institute asking them to stop the cruel experiments at UW by visiting getactive.peta.org/campaign/uw_monkeys

You can read the full story and watch the video from KOMO TV at komotv.com/news/15988507.html.

I never got a chance to mention that we were interviewed on WFHB a couple weeks ago. I’ve included our interview below. For the full show, visit the WFHB News site. Its always weird to hear yourself speak, especially when your words have been cut down from an hour to 17 minutes, but its a decent interview. Gets to the basics of what we are about and where we are coming from.

[audio:ecoreport.mp3]